Court Rules Ellison Must Donate $100M to Charity

PokeyPenguin writes "As part of a settlement for insider trading allegations, a California judge has ordered that Larry Ellison donate $100 million to charity. CNet reports, 'The charity payments are an unusual way to settle such a case. Typically, settlement payments would go directly to the company, in this case Oracle. "But with Mr. Ellison owning a quarter of Oracle's stock, much of such a direct payment, in effect, would have gone to him."'"

Comments

In Other News: Ellison to Borrow Page From T-Rex

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

http://qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=667

At press time, charity unreachable

[AEton]

Representatives from Ellison's selected charity - the little-known 'Human Fund' - were unavailable for comment.

$17 Billion Dollars?

[el_womble]

So the settlement was for 0.6% of his personal worth? Or bearly equivalent to a speeding ticket to a guy on $30,000 and he gets 5 years to pay it and no criminal record?

That's justice right there.

Great Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just exclude his stock from the distribution of the settlement. That way the people he screwed could still benefit from this settlement.

Re:JDJ Had This News 6 Weeks Ago

[boingyzain]

From TFA: ...the terms of which were approved on Tuesday by a California judge. Of course, Tuesday being November 22nd, the day this article was run. So, if you were to RTFA, you would find that this lists the newest developments in this case, not the stuff from six weeks ago.

No Tax Break

[David Hume]

Ellison won't get a tax break. Although the payment is being made to a charity, it is not a charitable contribution. He is receiving legal consideration for the payment -- i.e., he is settling and discharing a debt. It would similar to the situation where you bought a used car from the charity, and paid them money in exchange. Your payment would not be a charitable contribution

More precisely, the charity is a third party beneficiary of a contract between the plaintiff(s) and Ellison to settle the case. It would be more like a case where "Seller" sells a car to you but, feeling charitable, writes the contract so you pay the money to the charity. In that case, if anyone got a deduction it would be "Seller" and not you.

No wrongdoing?

[sh0dan]

From TFA:

Ellison offered in September to settle the case with $100 million in charitable donations and without admitting wrongdoing.

I'm really puzzled about this. Can someone explain to me, how you can pay yourself out of a wrongdoing?

To - you have either done nothing wrong, and you are free, or you have done something wrong and have to pay for it. Maybe I'm just naiive, but how can it be "nothing wrong" and paying back money?

Judgement Doesn't Make Sense to Me

[putko]

The judgement doesn't make sense to me.

Typically, if someone does something bad to someone, the person doing the bad has to compensate the harmed person.

So if Ellison did something bad to the shareholders, he should pay the shareholders.

The fact that Ellison is a shareholder too doesn't matter -- all it means is, in the big scheme of things Ellison did something bad to the minority shareholders.

So Ellison could just as easily compensate only the minority shareholders -- but only as much as he hurt them.

It doesn't make sense for the judge to say, "Oh my! This case is so complex, let's just have Larry flush some money down the toilet or give it to charity, and we'll call it even."

No no no. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

[Genady]

Ellison's lawyers filed an appeal under the 8th Amendment when it was revealed that Ellison would have to give the $100m to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.